The traffic light sprint is one of motoring’s great absurdities: a test of performance that is almost completely irrelevant in everyday life, unless your commute includes a drag strip, perfect road surface and a suspiciously relaxed attitude to the Highway Code. Yet somehow, 0-60 mph has become the universal shorthand for “how serious is this thing?” — the number that turns a sensible family hatchback into something your passenger suddenly regrets encouraging.

For hot hatches, it is especially entertaining because the whole point is contradiction. These are cars with boots, back seats and shopping-bag hooks, yet here they are trying to embarrass sports cars over the first few seconds of a standing start. Launch control, four-wheel drive, clever differentials and ever-more-unhinged turbo engines have turned the humble hatchback into a traffic-light terrier: small, practical, and absolutely determined to get to the next junction first.